


Sugar in the Wound

by magicianlogician12



Series: You, Me, and the Sea [6]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: F/F, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25291885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicianlogician12/pseuds/magicianlogician12
Summary: Jaina has had quite enough of the tension hovering between her and Captain Shadeweaver since the battle of Dazar'alor, and she seeks out answers.
Relationships: Jaina Proudmoore/Original Female Character(s)
Series: You, Me, and the Sea [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832245
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Sugar in the Wound

There was nothing that got under Jaina’s skin as much as evasive answers.

At best, they were an annoyance that left her awake long into the night, dissecting whatever answer she’d been given, a social puzzle she rarely had the energy to solve. At worst, they left others’ lives in danger, and left her to piece together enough to save them before the situation turned into a catastrophe, a situation that could have been avoided with a straight answer.

Captain Shadeweaver, unfortunately, was a  _ master  _ of evasive answers.

It was something that Jaina had witnessed before, but never before had it turned on her until several weeks ago, as their vessels retreated from Dazar’alor…and the final vessel guarding her retreat, the  _ Tide  _ itself, with its brave captain, its  _ foolishly  _ brave captain, whose guard had faltered for just long enough that a Zandalari blade sliced cleanly through her coat and clothing, tossing her into the waves below.

Jaina remembered shucking the outer, heavier layer of her robes without thinking, diving into the waves below the  _ Tide _ , following the cloud of blood that made Jaina’s stomach swoop thinking about it even now, to where the captain herself drifted down, jaw gone slack and bubbles drifting slowly, weakly, from her nostrils.

She remembered seeing the wound in Miri’s chest, all the way down to her hip, weeping blood into the endless waves, wrapping her arm around Miri’s hip as gently as she could, and pulling them back up to the surface–no time to get her to the flagship, already drifting out of range, and the frantic, worried hands of Miri’s crew brooked no argument as she was dragged aboard, and Jaina after her.

She remembered, in near-perfect clarity, the unsettling stillness of Miri’s chest, and how it made Jaina’s heart drop into her feet, as the only thing she could think was  _ not again _ . She would not–could not–lose another soul, who had turned so surprisingly precious to her, to the fathomless waves and the endless march of war.

She’d plugged Miri’s nose and breathed life back into her, her lips so shockingly ice-cold beneath her own, _ cold as the grave _ , she remembered thinking, and immediately discarded the thought, replacing it with steel-boned determination as Miri’s healer, a massive draenei wielding a glowing staff, hovered anxiously on the perimeter, waiting for an opportunity.

Miri had gasped and choked and spat up the water that was trapped in her lungs, and it was then that the draenei healer had knelt on her other side, hands glowing almost painfully bright gold. Jaina managed to rip a wider hole in Miri’s sword-slashed shirt, casting it away as she yanked the soaked, blood-stained leather jacket out from under Miri’s back.

She had been about ready to kill the captain herself as she’d said, the first thing since being pulled back up from the waves that would have claimed her life without remorse, slurred by exhaustion and delirium from blood loss, “If you wanted me out of my shirt that badly, Proudmoore, all you had to do was ask.”

Jaina had said nothing, because there was nothing  _ to  _ say, and between the blood pounding in her veins and her heart, rushing to the bruises and scrapes she herself still bore from the final battle before their departure throbbing, the harsh, acidic burn of fear that still lurked in the back of her throat, and the weakness that relief left in her knees, she had no room to consider anything else.

It wasn’t until Miri’s crew had assured Jaina they’d done all they could, and that the captain would survive her injuries, that she’d gone to the captain’s quarters, somehow indescribably  _ nervous _ . The captain had been asleep, though, eyes closed, the eyepatch she wore over her right eye absent and set on her desk’s worn surface. Under her shirt, Jaina saw the bumpy silhouette of bandages, wrapped securely around her shoulder, chest, and presumably all the way down the slash.

It could almost have been normal, or at least  _ tolerable _ , but Miri’s face had been slack and gaunt with exhaustion, and it was so steeply at odds with the Miri that Jaina knew on a daily basis that she’d felt something in her throat tighten, a knot she had been unable to swallow down.

The only other chair in the room was Miri’s high-backed desk chair with its faded upholstery, smelling of salty sea air and old wood, worn smooth with countless years of use. Jaina tugged the chair over until she was close enough to Miri’s bed that she could see changes in the captain’s facial expressions to know something was amiss, but far enough away she couldn’t reach the captain’s hand, resting limp against the sheets.

Only a few hours passed before Jaina rotated the chair, picking up Miri’s hand in both of her own, wrapping her fingers around Miri’s that were already warmer than they’d been on the deck of her ship. It was the warmth, more than anything, more even than the promises of Miri’s crew, that had reassured her the captain would survive.

Long into the night, Jaina had waited, her grip on Miri’s hand tightening with each passing hour, until they were white-knuckled under her gloves, and then she’d discarded the gloves entirely, holding the captain’s hand in her bare ones, able now to feel every swordsman’s callus on her palms, the boniness of her long, thin fingers, and when those fingers had twitched with movement, Jaina warred between releasing her grip and tightening it further, weighing the risks in an instant.

She’d tightened her grip, and had been rewarded with a sharp intake of breath as Miri regained consciousness, her eyes opening with a few slow, drowsy blinks. It was the first time, Jaina realized, she’d seen Miri’s right eye without the eyepatch’s protection, and discovered that the eye was not gone, merely scarred, and it no longer glowed with the same soft, subtle light that her left did. Those eyes had focused on where Jaina’s hands tightly held Miri’s own, then traveled up to Jaina’s face.

The silence that hovered between them had felt like an opportunity, Jaina knew, but an opportunity for  _ what? _ There had been too much she felt like she ought to say, but none of it fit right, none of it seemed  _ real  _ enough for the intimate truth that Jaina had been quite obviously waiting at the captain’s bedside for her to awaken, a bandage sealing the wounds they’d tried so desperately to heal.

In the end, she’d started with something simple. “How are you feeling?”

Miri had tried to laugh, but it came out as a cough instead, and she’d winced as her bandages shifted with the motion. “I’ve felt better, I’ll admit.”

“Obviously still well enough to make wisecracks while you bleed out all over your own deck.” Jaina had intended it to sound sharp, to match the usual tone of their banter, but it came out too shaky to seem convincingly caustic.

Miri had paused, let her free hand lay on her bandaged chest, and she drummed her fingers idly over the bandages, eyes searching Jaina’s face with a thoughtfully blank expression on her face, made less pensive by fatigue. Her smile was weak, and wan, but she still said, “If I didn’t know better, Proudmoore, I’d say you were  _ worried  _ about me.”

“Would it be so hard to believe?” the question came out, low and quiet and heavy, before Jaina could think to snatch it back, but she made no effort to do so. “That I care enough to be worried?”

Miri’s grin had widened a fraction. “You tell me.”

The memory was as fresh as if it’d happened yesterday, and weeks had passed since, with no more clarity provided since that day. Jaina’s ability to read other people might have faltered with time, but it seemed  _ impossible  _ to misread Captain Shadeweaver, in all her boisterous, open, and  _ loud  _ social habits.

It had started with that single answer that wasn’t an answer at all, several weeks before, but as the weeks went by Jaina found herself seeking Miri’s closeness, looking for whatever missing piece the captain herself refused to give her, because this one was  _ important _ , was worth the extra time Jaina would have to put in to discover it.

Deep in the halls of Proudmoore keep, Jaina approached the door that hid her office, and saw a leather-bound book, a basic seafaring manual, leaned against the doorway’s frame, a silent, secret signal that she had a visitor within. Once, only a few short weeks ago, it would have been a relief.

It still was, but Jaina squared her shoulders as she turned the knob, leaning down to pick up the book, because she  _ would  _ have a direct answer tonight, one way or the other, whether the sudden and unpredictable craving for  _ closeness  _ with Miri that Jaina had half-forgotten the implications behind was a tentative tether she ought to take a knife to before she wound the knot too tight to undo cleanly.

Or if this was something  _ else _ .

Miri was leaned against the side of Jaina’s desk, one of her long, oiled leather coats draped over one of the tall-backed chairs nearby, leaving a loose linen shirt under it, and the belted leather pants she favored in poor weather. Her blind side faced the door, but Miri’s ear twitched as Jaina entered, and her grin was as familiar as it was frustrating, as it had been for the past several weeks.

“No warm welcome for the returning patrol, Proudmoore?” Miri’s grin verged toward smirk territory as her hand reached for the edge of the still-healing scar across her chest from Dazar’alor. “I’m wounded.”

Despite herself, Jaina rolled her eyes and fought the smile that the easy banter always gave her, even as her stomach churned with the reminder of that terrifying day. “If you wanted fanfare, you should have sent word ahead.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Miri joked, picking up a piece of parchment from Jaina’s own desk and walking it over to where Jaina still stood at the door, holding it out, standing just  _ slightly  _ too close to be casual. “Nothing much happened on this round, but that only makes me more paranoid, if I’m being honest. I’m heading out tomorrow morning to settle my nerves.” Here she leaned in, braced one hand on the doorframe so she hovered over where Jaina stood, and this  _ was  _ what Jaina had wanted, but she also wanted  _ answers _ , and she had a feeling she wouldn’t get them like this. “Unless you needed anything  _ else _ , Proudmoore?”

From this angle, Jaina could clearly see the faint line of the scar across Miri’s covered right eye, the faint twitch at the corner of her mouth that said she was trying to keep her grin at a respectably roguish level, and how the looseness of Miri’s shirt betrayed her, slipping off one shoulder to rest lopsided across her lanky frame.

Part of Jaina wanted to know if Miri’s lips were warmer now, weeks healed from her near-death plunge, but she chased the thought away.

There was a missing piece, Jaina knew, that the captain  _ still  _ hadn’t given her, but this situation demanded a response, it demanded  _ something _ , and she waited for Miri to give it to her, but instead Miri sighed slightly and leaned back, but the motion dragged a question free. “Why do you keep doing that?”

It gave Miri pause. “What am I doing?”

“Avoiding the question.” there wasn’t much distance to close between them, and this distance felt appropriate for the questions at hand, so Jaina didn’t take a step forward, but she did straighten her spine. “Avoiding the question, and…” Jaina grasped for the right word, and only came up with “ _ …hesitating _ .”

“Hesitating in  _ what _ , Proudmoore?” rare frustration began to seep into Miri’s tone, and for a moment it left cracks in Jaina’s confidence, but she pressed on anyway.

“In  _ this _ ,” Jaina made a vague hand motion between the two of them, “where you stand too close to me to be casual, but do nothing to…confirm or deny that it means anything. You did the same thing after Dazar’alor, when I asked you if it was so hard to believe that I cared enough to be worried, and I want you to be honest with me–what does it mean?”

For a long moment, Miri blinked at her, then released a breath and rubbed a hand on the back of her neck. “Oh, Proudmoore…how long have you been carrying this around? Since Dazar’alor? I wish you’d said something sooner. It seems we have a classic case of…miscommunication.”

Jaina’s stomach dropped into her feet, but she steeled herself. “How so?”

Miri sighed and rested one fist upon her hip, relaxing her stance even if her shoulders seemed stiff as stone. “I don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve been… _ involved  _ with anyone. Romantically. And frankly it’s none of my business, unless you want to tell me. I do know that it’s likely been quite some time, though, Proudmoore, and it’s a bigger deal for you than it is for me. You know me,” Miri grinned again, in that way that felt more like a smirk, but still somehow comforting, “I try to make my intentions clear. But with you–I knew if I made myself too direct, too forward, all I was likely to do was scare you off.”

“I’m not so easily frightened.” Jaina tilted her chin up to match the angle of Miri’s face as she looked down, and tried to hide the way her stomach flipped.

“Oh, I’m well aware.” Miri leaned down over Jaina again, hand still braced on the doorframe. “But it’s one thing to charge into battle headfirst and quite another to contend with the fact you  _ care _ , hmm? I could recognize where there was opportunity, and I could make my intentions known as subtly as I’m capable of, but I can’t be the only one leading this dance, Proudmoore. You’ve got to be the one who takes the next step.”

It all fell into place at once, and it took a few seconds of speechless silence for Jaina to say, “You were waiting for me.”

“Waiting for you to take whatever you wanted out of this.” Miri tilted her head and considered her words. “Out of this…arrangement. If you want nothing more than what we already have, fine. If you want something more, though…” Miri leaned down just enough that her near-whisper was clear, “…you take it.”

Only a few possible resolutions rushed through Jaina’s head in a few split seconds, and she found her gaze transfixed on Miri’s lips again, slightly chapped from the sea air, curled up into that off-balance grin that Jaina remembered being so cold and empty aboard the  _ Tide _ ’s decks as it fled Dazar’alor, tasting of death and metallic blood, a taste Jaina never wanted to think about again.

Her hesitation was just enough for Miri to begin leaning away again, but Jaina reached out, wrapped her fingers into the loose linen shirt, slipping halfway off Miri’s shoulder, pulled her back, and crushed their lips together.

It was sloppy, and Miri had been caught at least a little by surprise, judging by the way her hand slapped abruptly against the door frame again, searching for balance, but they settled into it, a rhythm that felt unfamiliar to Jaina, all but forgotten, and she couldn’t help but feel, in the captain’s slow and hesitant movements, that she was holding back.

Jaina leaned back, watched Miri’s grin grow wider, and watched it turn into something bright and beaming when she said, “Kiss me like you mean it, Ismirah.”

Miri laughed, and her free hand cradled the back of Jaina’s head as she said, “Be careful what you ask for.”

Her kiss that time was full and deep, tasting faintly of sea salt and the tea she favored, her fingers tangling in the loose hair at the nape of Jaina’s neck that had broken free of her braid throughout the day. Jaina let go of Miri’s shirt, and instead only just managed to rest one of her hands on Miri’s cheek before she leaned back again, her eye half-lidded and her grin far softer this time.

“Well, then,” Miri broke the silence first, her face still close enough to Jaina’s that she could feel the faint warmth of her breath, “I suppose that was just as direct of an answer as I could have hoped for, but it’s worth hearing–”

“I care.” was the first thing to spill out of her, one hand still on Miri’s cheek, the other coming up to grip the front of her shirt again. “I care enough to dive into the sea after you, bring you back to your ship, and try to save you.” she paused, then added, “Even if you made a wisecrack at a highly inappropriate time. And I care enough that I’d do it again.”

“My inopportune wisecracks are all part of the charm, Proudmoore.” Miri’s eye crinkled with her faint smile, “And it’s worth noting that offer is still open.”

Jaina hoped the burning on the back of her neck didn’t show on her face, and she tightened her grip on Miri’s shirt for a moment longer before letting go. “We’ll talk about it  _ after  _ you come back from your patrol tomorrow, Captain.”

Miri bowed low, and it had to have been intentional that her loose shirt slipped just a little more down her arm, but Jaina said nothing as Miri stood back up to her full height and said, “Whatever you like, Jaina. All you have to do is ask.”

Picking up her jacket from the back of the chair she’d stowed it on, Miri tugged it back over her shoulders, and, at the door, turned back one last time. Jaina raised an eyebrow. “Something else, Ismirah?”

“Just thinking that you look good flustered, Proudmoore.” Miri told her innocently. “I’ll have to make a point to do it more often.”

Before Jaina could think to structure a response, Miri blew her a kiss from the doorway, and swept out, the sound of her laughter following her out until it faded. She was left holding the captain’s report from her last patrol and was certainly not in a good place to focus on it now, but that was a problem Jaina far and away didn’t mind having. She could always ask the captain herself if she had questions later.

There was, after all, nothing she appreciated more than a direct answer, and Captain Shadeweaver was, fortunately,  _ quite  _ well-versed in that.


End file.
